The loss of contact with Team 3 was a huge blow to everyone.
Each team had completely lost communication upon descending below seven hundred meters.
Just five minutes before going silent, Lu Xiu from Team 3 transmitted a single image.
Beneath the dark blue surface of the water, countless threads flickering with pink luminescence drifted through the depths. Judging from the angle of the image, it seemed that Lu Xiu and the others were completely surrounded by these endless threads.
Jiang Yue had witnessed the destructive power of these threads firsthand. The two Alpha classmates who had been instantly drained to husks by them still occasionally appeared in her nightmares.
She also remembered the first time she encountered the threads: when their tips flickered, a ring of transparent ripples spread through the air. At that moment, she heard a sharp, piercing whistle in her ears, Jiang Yue was certain it was not her imagination.
The researchers at the base also believed that the threads possessed a form of spiritual attack, capable of damaging the human psyche. Perhaps it was the threads’ mental assault on these elite squads with exceptionally strong spiritual abilities that prevented them from returning safely.
The three elite teams comprised a total of eighteen geniuses whose spiritual levels had reached the 3S rank. With these precious talents trapped in an enormous pit, their fates unknown, it was a tremendous loss for any planet.
The decision-makers at the base were at a loss, and the atmosphere throughout the facility was oppressive, so heavy that even the air felt stifling and suffocating.
Jiang Yue spent sleepless nights, most of the time sitting in a daze alongside Xiang Sui.
Most people at the base moved about with serious expressions, their steps hurried. On the third day after Team 3 went missing, Xiang Sui’s father, Xiang Yan, arrived at the base.
It was Jiang Yue’s first time seeing Xiang Yan. He was a stern and silent middle-aged Alpha, bearing a striking resemblance to Xiang Sui, both had that “cool guy” Alpha look. His build was strong and tall, towering slightly over Jiang Yue.
The general wore his military uniform, exuding a commanding and solemn presence, accompanied by an intense aura of lethality as he dined with the two of them.
After that, Jiang Yue never saw Xiang Yan again.
Day after day, Xiang Sui’s anxiety and irritability grew. His short temper began to unsettle Jiang Yue as well, so she resigned herself to staying alone in her room, reading a jumble of random books.
Two more days passed like stagnant water, and then another incident struck the base.
Xiang Sui secretly took his father’s equipment and went down to the deep pit.
At eighteen, he was at that fearless age when you think you can do anything. Teenagers at this stage of youthful arrogance often act impulsively and recklessly, unconcerned with life or death, and tend to oversimplify even the most complex situations.
The incident caused an uproar throughout the base. After all, Xiang Sui was the son of Federation General Xiang Yan. As for his father—
He flew into a rage. According to reports, overnight, all the hair at his temples turned completely white.
Jiang Yue cried again. She sat alone in her room, sobbing uncontrollably while scolding Xiang Sui for half an hour.
Her heart felt completely cold, utterly hopeless, convinced that Xiang Sui was likely doomed.
After days of washing her face with tears, her eyes were swollen from crying.
Her once deep eyes were now puffed up like two peaches, barely able to open. The base doctor prescribed some eye drops and ice packs for both internal use and external application.
So Jiang Yue applied ice packs, used eye drops, and cried all at the same time.
It was just too much, why did such things have to happen?
By the time her swollen, red eyes returned to normal, the base had gone from a shortage of personnel to a critical shortage.
These experts, capable of manifesting their spiritual powers, had originally each managed important responsibilities. Reassigning even a few of these elite personnel was already a painful blow to Beta Star, forcing the base to scramble and conscript reinforcements from everywhere.
As an Alpha capable of manifesting spiritual power, Jiang Yue was naturally requisitioned for temporary duty.
The task assigned to her was very simple. She only needed to stay in the observation station beside the massive pit, recording the times and frequencies when all the threads lit up, while also monitoring whether the related instruments were operating smoothly and reporting any malfunctions promptly.
The job required no technical skill, yet it still needed someone to do it, making it perfectly suited for a first-year military academy student like Jiang Yue, who knew next to nothing.
And so Jiang Yue began a lonely, monotonous, and tedious life. All her eating, drinking, sleeping, and even bathroom breaks took place in the observation station, with the bottomless, massive pit visible through the sealed, reinforced windows.
A female Alpha shared shifts with her, and they swapped at midnight.
As the anomalous creatures entered a deep hibernation state, the threads’ lighting frequency shifted from every two hours to every three.
Each time the threads lit up, the observation station was bathed in an eerie pink glow.
The sudden, dazzling glow in the dark world made one feel unbearably lonely. In the instant the world was illuminated, that sense of isolation reached its peak.
It was as if she were the only person left on in the world; the world fell into utter silence, and both time and thought seemed to freeze in the dreamlike pink light.
To prevent herself from sinking too deeply into despair, Jiang Yue asked the base personnel to download a large number of talk shows and dating programs.
Halfway through watching, she couldn’t help but glance at the people confined in cages. Their bodies were still incubating the eggs of the blue-eyed millipedes. In some, the eggs had burst through the skin, yellow pus mingling with the eggs trickling down in a disturbing drizzle.
In some bodies, dense swarms of blue-eyed millipedes hatched. The tiny millipedes burrowed out of their hosts, devouring the human flesh completely before turning on one another, much like the “Gu” parasite rituals described in martial arts novels.
When a victorious blue-eyed millipede grew to around three meters, the threads would softly coil around it. Those seemingly delicate, thread-like strands would silently pierce into the millipede’s body.
The millipede, like an insect caught in a spider’s web, struggled in vain for a while before gradually being devoured bit by bit by the threads.
As the threads absorbed nourishment, the pink glimmers grew even brighter.
The pit was kilometers deep, could there really be countless humans kept in cages at the very bottom, serving as fodder?
Who exactly had captured these people and brought them here, and what was the purpose behind it all?
Suddenly, the threads in the pit lit up again, snapping Jiang Yue’s wandering thoughts back to the present. She glanced at the time on the terminal.
Oh, midnight. Damn it, it was time for the shift change!
This damn place!
The female Alpha on shift came in, and during the handover, the two lonely Alphas chatted idly for a bit.
Looking exhausted, she brought Jiang Yue a few buckets of instant noodles. Jiang Yue sipped from her thermos and glanced at the values on the 3D display.
“Strange… why is it missing a second?”
Jiang Yue tore open her instant noodles and looked up. “What do you mean it’s missing a second?”
The female Alpha pointed at the screen. “Look, the threads light up every three hours. In the most recent data, the interval has become two hours, fifty-nine minutes, and twenty-nine seconds.”
Jiang Yue frowned. “It’s only a difference of one second.”
The female Alpha shook her head. “No. The concentration of the blastozyme is continuously increasing. The threads coexist with the anomalous creatures, so this interval should be progressively longer, not shorter. Even a decrease of one second is wrong.”
Jiang Yue leaned closer to the screen and examined the data carefully. This time, she noticed the problem herself and exclaimed in alarm, “It really is shorter! The interval used to increase by two seconds each time, and now it’s suddenly one second less.”
The female Alpha’s expression turned grave as she opened the terminal to send a message to their superiors.
Jiang Yue stared at the curve on the graph, her palms sweating, so tense she couldn’t even touch her noodles.
This one-second discrepancy had drawn the base’s serious attention. Jiang Yue and the female Alpha downed a large cup of coffee and sprayed some blastozyme perfume to keep their minds sharp.
The last time the threads had lit up was 11:59:59.
In the observation station, the two of them sat in tense silence. The female Alpha focused on the data, while Jiang Yue stared out the window.
After a long, drawn-out wait, countless threads suddenly lit up in unison.
Jiang Yue instinctively glanced at the time: 2:59:58.
Another second shorter.
At the same time, the duration for which the threads stayed lit increased from ten seconds to eleven seconds.
When the data came in, Jiang Yue’s heart pounded violently in her chest, and a sour taste rose in her mouth. She swallowed several times before she could calm herself.
The female Alpha stood by the window, her fingers trembling as she sent messages through the terminal.
At 5:59:57, the threads lit up in unison again, another second shorter in the interval.
At the same time, the duration of the threads’ illumination increased to twelve seconds.
Everyone at the base began to panic, this meant the anomalous creatures were indeed slowly awakening.
Whether to send a new special team down to investigate became a contentious and unresolved issue.
Time waited for no one. The interval between the threads’ lighting, which had been increasing by one second each time, now began increasing by two seconds.
If this increase followed a geometric progression, then the remaining time was truly running out.
Jiang Yue and the female Alpha continued recording data in the observation station.
After another shift change, an exhausted Jiang Yue stood by the window and saw yet another special team appear on the platform above the massive pit.
The concentration of blastozyme in the pit had already reached thousands of times the lethal dose. These blastozyme could penetrate the human body through the pores, so everyone wore nano-hazard suits and carried nutrient supply pods and oxygen tanks.
In addition to the special team about to descend for exploration, another group of personnel, also in nano-protective suits, operated the complex instruments on the platform.
Jiang Yue’s knowledge was limited, and she had no idea what those devices were for.
The female Alpha beside her explained, “These are signal amplifiers.”
The base began releasing high concentrations of blastozyme.
Jiang Yue and the female Alpha also started donning their nano-protective suits. The nutrient pods they wore came equipped with micro-needle smart delivery tubes, once inserted into the bloodstream, they caused no sensation at all.
The nutrient pods and oxygen tanks contained a two-month supply. Thanks to interstellar-era technology, the protective suits were extremely lightweight once worn, causing no sense of restriction at all.
After another shift change, Jiang Yue stretched her stiff spine as she stepped out of the observation platform. A base worker called her over to lend a hand.
Since the threads emitted spiritual energy, personnel who could not manifest their spiritual powers were subject to interference.
At times like this, it was necessary to release spiritual energy from a manifested spiritual body to shield against the threads’ influence.
The Alpha who had called her over said, “Stand on the platform and release your spiritual body. When you feel fatigued, send a report, and we’ll rotate shifts.”
The Alpha gave a wry smile. “I really can’t hold on any longer. I’d appreciate it if you could take over for a bit.”
Jiang Yue nodded. “No problem, no problem. I’m happy to help.”
She climbed onto the platform, closed her eyes, and searched for the sensation. Five seconds later, a transparent golden eagle spread its wings and flew out from the ripples.
The golden eagle soared through the dark blue mist, and a ring of transparent barrier appeared around the edge of the platform.
The moment the barrier materialized, it was as if countless raindrops struck it, sending ripples cascading outward in wave after wave.
Jiang Yue was shocked. “Is this the spiritual attack of the threads?”
The Alpha who had called for her help cursed viciously, “Yes, that’s right! Nonstop, endless, it’s disgustingly relentless!”
It was truly nauseating. Those who could manifest their spiritual powers didn’t need to worry too much about the intensity of such attacks, but protecting others from them was extremely exhausting.
To reinforce the barrier, Jiang Yue had to step further forward.
A three-meter-high transparent glass railing stood at the front of the platform; she was just two steps away from reaching it.
The golden eagle circled overhead, then spread its wings and dove straight into the depths of the massive pit.
Just as Jiang Yue was about to summon the eagle back, countless threads in the pit suddenly emitted an unbearably blinding pink light, accompanied by waves of tsunami-like roars that echoed like the fury of ancient times.
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152